Co-Founder of Best In Grass
The Hotbox with Dustin Hoxworth isn’t your polished PR interview. It’s me getting stoned and asking people the questions they probably aren’t ready for. These aren’t cold reads or copy-paste Q&As; I sit with my guests, usually multiple times, and I’ve likely met them in person, which gives me a window to learn who they really are before I ever send the questions. By the time the words hit the page, it’s smoke-thick honesty, not surface-level bullshit. These are cannabis conversations that showcase the voices, stories, and truths that won’t show up in the boardroom.
There are people who judge cannabis. And then there are people who elevate the art of judging cannabis. Mark Kazinec sits firmly in that second category.
Before Best In Grass, Mark was a traditional marketing nut who somehow found himself bouncing across music tours, comedy circuits, and eventually right into the heart of cannabis culture. His path mirrors the chaos and creativity of this industry. He went from building tours to building community, and now he’s one of the few people trying to put the power back into the hands of the people.
Today, he’s the guy leading a public-facing cannabis competition that lets real consumers identify and award the best products in each state. He’s deeply focused on maximizing feedback and data for cultivators and processors. And through all of it, he’s still bringing good people together, cooking, skateboarding, taking photos, and building something meaningful with whoever believes in authenticity over hype.
I’ve wanted to do a Hotbox with Mark for a while now. What’s funny is that we haven’t yet found a way to work together in any real business sense. No collaboration, partnership, or cross-promotional master plan. And honestly, that’s completely fine with me because sometimes you don’t need a contract in place to respect what someone is building.
Best In Grass is one of the few competitions in this industry that actually feels like it belongs to the people. It builds loyalty. It’s fun, different, and reinforces our culture instead of exploiting it. And it taps into something most brands and events forget about while chasing numbers and hype. It creates real engagement with the community. That alone is enough for me to appreciate what Mark and his team are doing.
I don’t need every cool idea in cannabis to be connected to Fat Nugs Magazine. I don’t need to force partnerships to validate FNM’s place in the space. Sometimes I just want to sit back, watch someone execute a vision with integrity, and support them from afar because it moves the culture and industry forward.
Today, Mark steps into The Hotbox to talk truth about quality, accountability, consumer voice, and the future of cannabis competitions. The industry should pay attention to this.
Light up. Let’s go.
The Hotbox Q&A: 5 Questions with Mark Kazinec
You’ve seen more cannabis entries than the average person will in ten lifetimes. From your vantage point, what do consumers actually value most when they choose their winners? What rises to the top, no matter the category or trend?
That’s a very fair statement, Dustin. I’ve run cannabis competitions for 5 years now, with about 6-10 competitions per year, and about 2,000 judges per competition. So, I’ve helped deliver about 80,000+ judge kits across the country.
Overall, consumers mostly value Taste and Effectiveness, with Aesthetics as runner-up. They want something with flavor, and something that achieves the experience they’re looking for. Of course, we all want to look at something eye-catching. They write about what they love, and certainly about what disgusts them about these products.
In terms of taste, having a fruity or gassy flavor typically gets people excited, while they also look for a high that eases that pressure in their heads or bodies, without knocking them out of reality.
Honesty and transparency are huge when it comes to competitions. What were some of the earliest decisions you made that set your competition apart and protected its integrity from day one?
The hardest part of my job is proving to people that we are not like other competitions. I learned a lot from cultivators, processors, dispensaries, and judges who gave us feedback on our processes, and we actually made use of it. Here are some key points:
- Largest population of Judges: With 2,000-3,000 judge kits per state on average spread out across the entire state, it becomes very tough for any one group to sway the results.
- Unique QR Codes: Every kit comes with a unique QR code that cannot be used twice, which avoids stacking of votes.
- Data Analysis: We spend hours and hours combing through the judge results to find outliers or funny business. If we see that a brand votes for itself, or someone is voting all 10’s for one brand and all 1’s for another brand, we investigate and take action.
Lastly, we’re just honest people. I don’t care who I’m friends with, who sponsors or offers us money, who enters 20 entries or 2 entries… It’s not up to me or the heady boys or the industry tastemakers, it’s up to the people.
When you look across categories, flower, prerolls, concentrates, vapes, edibles, what is the most common mistake brands make when submitting products for judging? And what is the one thing you wish you could tell every brand to stop doing?
Protect your buds! So many brands simply put flower into a mylar bag, which is vulnerable to being crushed. Use a small plastic tray inside the bag to protect it, especially if you can’t afford a jar. I also recommend printing stickers for your brand and strain name on vape pens. Once it comes out of your packaging, people may not remember what they’re consuming.
In terms of compliance, people think they are well-versed on regulations, but oftentimes they are not. Read the packaging and labeling rules in your state, and stop sending us 1g units that say 3.5g on the package.
You get to see how everyday people judge cannabis. What surprised you the most once you started analyzing the data and the human behavior behind the scores?
People get very excited to judge and sometimes rush it. Unlike any other competition, we give people 2 months to judge from the comfort of their home. I recommend taking it slow: Sit in front of your laptop or phone, comment on the aesthetics and aroma, then sample the product slowly and intentionally. Comment on the taste and effectiveness upon first trial. Sit, relax, and let the effects settle in. Later, add additional comments about the effectiveness.
I want to see judges become novelists and write every bit of info from the time of day to their mood before consuming, to the way they consumed, and what activities they did post-consumption. All of this is valuable feedback that goes back to the brands.
Let’s talk about the pressure brands feel. Everyone wants trophies. Everyone wants to say they are the best. But only a few brands actually win consistently. What are those brands doing differently from everyone else?
I have 2 answers to this question:
- You only win if you enter. Many brands pretend they don’t want accolades or don’t want feedback, but my team and I believe that, despite what an over-confident brand may think, getting your product into people’s hands who are actually making purchasing decisions is the best way to win – whether that’s winning trophies, winning over customers via sampling, or winning the ever-evolving game of marketing.
- The brands that do enter and win seem to have the highest rankings in Taste and Effectiveness. Winning brands do R&D to see how the product tastes and makes them feel. They take feedback. They adjust to not only what their internal team thinks, but what paying consumers think. I’ve had brands tell us they switched up nutrient lines because the feedback we provided to them indicated a taste that comes from one nutrient line more than another, and it worked wonders.
If the entire industry had to follow one rule for competitions going forward, what rule would you enforce and why?
Let people who actually spend money in our industry be the ones to vote. These are the hard-working people who spend their paycheck to keep brands and dispensaries in business. And stop worrying about THC% alone!
Best In Grass is what happens when you blend data, honesty, passion, and consumer truth without compromise. Mark Kazinec sits at the intersection of culture, quality, and accountability at a time when the industry needs all three more than ever.
